I'm in my mid 30s (gulp) and married to a great guy. We live in Northern VA with our crazy hound dog Cady. We love to travel, eat great food, drink good wine, cheer for our favorite sports teams and have fun with friends. This blog is a collection of things - travel stories, DC happenings, home improvement projects, recipes, and all kinds of fun adventures we're having!

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Thursday, July 3, 2014

Anniversary weekend in Chicago

It's hard to believe M and I just celebrated our 7th anniversary together! My goodness how time flies.

When we started thinking about what we wanted to do to celebrate, we talked about getting out of town for a weekend. Chicago was on the list, since we hadn't been together in a few years. When I looked at the calendar, I realized I would be there for the week before our anniversary on business, so that was the obvious choice.

M arrived on Thursday evening, and I wrapped up our events Friday morning. Once we switched hotels and got settled, the first place we went was Eataly! If you know anything about us, you know we plan our trips around food, and this one was no exception.

After exploring the HUGE store (is that what you call it? Store/bar/restaurant?), we found a spot in the beer cafe in the corner and decided this would be our afternoon hangout. We were waiting for our friends to fly in from DC to join us for the weekend.

With both the US Open and World Cup matches on, we were in a perfect location. Plus they had one of my favorite beers on tap - Dogfish's Positive Contact! We ordered a few small plates including fried shrimp, a white bean and artichoke spread, and fried chickpeas - all were delicious! Perfect timing, just as we finished lunch, our friends arrived!

That evening we headed over to Restaurant Row and had small plates/appetizers at 2 of the cities hottest restaurants - Girl and the Goat and Avec.

The food at both restaurants was incredible. At Girl and the Goat we got several appetizers: goat empanadas (you have to get something with goat!), roasted cauliflower, and hamachi crudo, among other things. Everything was delicious, and we all tried one of their signature cocktails, which were delicious as well. The one I ordered, Bolt Action, is made with Blenheim's ginger ale, which is made in a small town near where my dad grew up in North Carolina! It's hard to find even here in DC, so imagine my surprise when I saw it on a menu in Chicago!

At Avec, we had a few more small plates and dessert. Again, delicious!

Saturday morning we needed a bit of exercise, so we got up early leisurely and went for a walk around the city. Chicago has always been one of my favorite places, and the weather over the weekend was just perfect.

Our Saturday activity was a Chicago White Sox game! If I'm in town, it means the Cubs are out of town...it's just what happens. So the next best thing was to head to Comiskey Field, aka US Cellular Field. The weather could not have been any better, and we had fantastic seats.

M even caught his first foul ball!

Apparently at this point I decided to stop taking photos, because I didn't take any more the rest of the weekend! After the game, we were starving so we stopped by Public House back in the city for some nachos, pizza, beer and soccer. That evening we headed up north a bit, just north of the Lake View area, to the Half Acre Brewery. The boys wanted to try a few of their beers, so we stopped in their tap room for a bit. We were finally hungry after that and went over to the brand new restaurant, Parachute. It had only been open a few weeks - it's a Korean American restaurant opened by Beverly Kim and her husband Johnny Clark. We were fans of Beverly on Top Chef, so were excited to go check out her new spot! We tried a bunch of different things, but the bi bim bop was by far my favorite!

Sunday morning we went for another walk, and then back to restaurant row for brunch at Little Goat, the diner connected to Girl and the Goat. It was absolutely packed, but we put our name on the list, got a coffee, and walked around a bit while we waited - and it was definitely worth the wait! Everything was delicious, and it was the perfect end to our weekend in Chicago. The boys drove us girls to the airport to head home, and they set out on their baseball adventure - they went to 3 more parks and several breweries as they made their way back to DC!